Paul Oquist
Paul Herbert Oquist Kelley (1942/1943 – 13 April 2021) was a Nicaraguan politician, Secretary of the Presidency and considered the principal advisor to President Daniel Ortega.
Biography
[edit]He was born in Oak Park, Illinois, U.S and began working with Daniel Ortega in president's first term in the 1980s.[1]
Oquist was the climate envoy for Nicaragua during the COP21 conference, and opposed Nicaragua joining the Paris Agreement. He cited his opposition to nationally determined contributions being voluntary.[2]
On 9 October 2020, the U.S Department of the Treasury sanctioned Oquist and other Sandinists officials, stating that "[he] plays a lead role in spreading disinformation to cover up the regime’s crimes and misdeeds of horrific human rights abuses".[3] Oquist was one of Ortega's main operators before different international forums, where he claimed that the opposition protests calling for the president's ouster in 2018 were an attempted coup d'état.[1]
It is said that during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nicaragua, Oquist was the one who devised the president's decision not to decree a national lockdown as he considered the COVID-19 pandemic an invention of capitalist countries to solve internal problems, this according to Dora María Téllez.[1]
Oquist died on 13 April 2021, at the Alejando Dávila Bolaño military hospital in Managua from COVID-19. He was 78.[4]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c "Muere Paul Oquist, el estadounidense sandinista y brazo derecho de Ortega en Nicaragua" (in Spanish). France 24. 13 April 2021.
- ^ Cabral, Angelica (2017-06-01). "Why Isn't Nicaragua Part of the Paris Agreement?". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2023-06-29.
- ^ "Treasury Sanctions Nicaraguan Financial Institution and Officials Supporting Ortega Regime". United States Department of the Treasury. 9 October 2020.
- ^ "Muere por coronavirus el principal asesor político del presidente nicaragüense, Daniel Ortega". Europa Press (in Spanish). 13 April 2021.
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